I rubbed my palms together quickly, getting my energy going, and trying to get my mind right. Carmen watched me carefully to see if I was alright, and even though I felt like I wasn’t, I needed to get my shit together and handle business. It’s who I was, and it’s what needed to happen.

“Okay, Ryan, just stick with us until you get your backstage pass, and then you can do whatever you want. Sound check won’t take super long, and then we’ll grab something to eat and check in with the opening act,” I turned to Carmen. “Do you remember their name?”

“Is that a serious question?” She laughed at me.

Realizing that, of all people, Carmen was the least likely to know who they were, because she really didn’t give a shit, I replied, “Okay, fair enough. That was a dumb question,” I let out a light laugh, still needing the answer to my question.

“Bound Temple,” Ryan interjected.

“What?” I asked.

“The opening act. Their name is Bound Temple.” He smirked, drawing attention to the small dimple in his cheek just under his blonde scruff.

“Bound Temple?” Carmen scrunched her nose. “What the fuck kind of name is that?”

“Hell if I know,” Ryan shrugged. “I just know that’s what it is.” Then he chuckled, looking back and forth between Carmen and I and our confused expressions.

“Well, okay then. Thanks, Ryan. At least one of us has our shit together here today,” I replied.

“Hey! I have my shit together.” Carmen swatted at my ass with her drumsticks as I walked past her to leave the dressing room, causing me to let out a little yelp.

“Ouch!” I rubbed my ass where she smacked me. “Let’s not exaggerate, sister,” I teased.

“Blah blah, after you. Let’s get this show on the road already.” She followed me, with Ryan not far behind.

The Veronica person who was supposed to come see us never did, and I really needed to get some tea sooner rather than later. With Ryan and Carmen in tow, I poked in every room along the way to the stage area, looking for our people, and for a drink.

Our little entourage finally reached the stage, where we found the rest of the group setting up instruments. They all had passes on, so someone had found Veronica, apparently. I was slightly annoyed she hadn’t found us yet.

“Hey, where’s the chick with the passes?” I asked Travis, who was setting up some cords, and marking the stage with tape.

Turning to me, he grinned and replied, “Hi Miranda, you look really pretty today. Veronica is just over there, talking to her boss.” He pointed across the bar to a woman with long curly dark hair, who was definitely holding the passes I was looking for.

“Thank you, Travis. Is everything going well with setup?” I asked. Travis was our one permanent roadie; he’d been with us for as long as I could remember. I was pretty sure he had a little crush on me, and while that would never happen for me, he was a sweet guy. My dad had once told me that Travis had a rough upbringing, and working for us was a great opportunity for us to pay it forward. He seemed to have some nervous ticks or something, but other than that, he was always nice, always showed up, and was super reliable.

“Yep! Things are A-OK, business as usual. I got your guitars off your bus for you too,” he beamed.

“Thank you so much.” I smiled at him, showing the approval his expression indicated he was waiting for. “I need to go talk to Veronica now, so I’ll check back in a bit, okay?”

“Sounds good, Miranda,” .He smiled enthusiastically, and went back to work.

Poking me with her sticks, Carmen tried hustling me along. “Let’s go!” she barked.

“Seriously, if you poke me with those motherfucking sticks again…” I snarled at her.

“You’re gonna what?” She laughed dramatically at me, knowing I had no real threat, and reminding me that being a pain in my ass was one of her greatest joys.

“Oh, fuck off,” I huffed at her, making my way to Veronica.

Ryan started chuckling as we walked across the bar, clearly enjoying the banter between Carmen and I. “Something funny, writer?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

Holding his hands up in surrender, he grinned widely and tried to stifle his laughter. “No, nothing funny at all.” He looked around the room, pretending to look for the culprit that wasn’t him.

Pointing my finger at him and trying to be serious, I replied, “That’s right. Nothing’s funny.” But I couldn’t keep a straight face, and started to laugh myself, causing all three of us to chuckle. I was never mad for long; or annoyed, for that matter. And I’m sure that watching my sister and I interact the way we did was hysterical to the newcomer. I shook my head and finally retrieved our passes from the girl, and was told there would be some tea coming to me on stage in a few minutes.

After I made a mental note to get a goddamn travel mug with my own tea on the bus from now on, Carmen and I headed back to the stage to get the sound check over with. I wanted to fuss around a bit, and I had a lot of nervous energy. Between sitting around, the fucking note with the flowers, and just the anticipation of getting the tour underway, I was antsy.

What we’d done back in Nashville was a full run through of the show from start to finish, playing all our songs. While we didn’t need to do that at every venue through the tour, we did need to do a sound check at every stop. Generally, it’s done a little earlier in the day though. I thought we’d left in enough time, but I was feeling a little rushed. A typical sound check for a band like us consisted of re-tuning the instruments and working with the sound engineer at each stop to check the 's sound system and ensure that the sound in the front of house which was for the audience, as well as the rear facing speakers, which are the stage monitor sound systems are clear, at the right volumes and not too loud or too quiet.

This was also my opportunity to get my in-ear monitors tuned to the right frequencies so I could hear what I needed to when I was singing. I didn’t use them regularly on the last tour, and while I’d been practicing with them, they were still a bit awkward for me. I had two custom sets made for this tour. They were identical, but I was always a planner, and had a back-up plan for my back up plans. The purpose of the IEM’s - what they’re called by musicians - is to cancel out ambient noise, as well as the drums in most cases. When I was on stage, almost the only thing I could hear was the drums, and so singers wear them, and have them dialed in to the sounds they need to hear in order to hit their cues, and also so they don’t sing too softly or too loudly. In previous shows, I had a lot of trouble hearing anything except the drums, and it caused me to either be behind or ahead in a song from time to time. If all I could hear was Carmen, I’d be shouting into my microphone, which would sound like dog shit to the audience, so getting that just right is part of the sound check too. A lot of artists use them to tune out the audience as well, but because I like to interact with the audience, I have a special set-up.

If a singer wants to be able to hear the audience, but they don’t want the sound to be overwhelming, what we can do is turn a couple of microphones at the sides of the stage to face the audience, and then the sound engineer can add that feed into my ears at a lower level than if I had nothing filtering it. Because I also play guitar at various points in the show, it was important for me to work with the engineer to turn that sound up and down in my ears through the show. From my perspective, it was the longest, most arduous part of the sound check and frankly, gave me a bit of a headache half the time, but when we were performing, it really did make all the difference in the quality of the sound coming out of me specifically. My dad had told me I should have done a mix of my own prior to the tour, and I didn’t, which I was already regretting.

Local sound guys are all different, and if we had our own pre-set mix, we could simply give our box that is already pre-wired and set to how we like the sound in the ear piece to the local sound guy, we wouldn’t have to go through the shenanigans of adjusting so much at every venue. My stubborn resistance to the earpieces was the reason, and I knew I’d regret that decision at every stop on this tour after today. As usual, parents are always right. I didn’t want to deal with the work of doing it, which was fucking foolish and not typical of my usual over-planning.

In any event, we got ourselves situated on stage, ran through a couple of songs, and tuned the instruments quickly and efficiently. I couldn’t help but watch Ryan while I was on stage. He was sitting at the bar to the left side of the room, watching intently the entire time. I was obviously attracted to him, but it was more than that. The way he always had his eyes on me, scanning the area around him, observing. It seemed more intense than what I’d imagined a reporter would do.

In between songs, while Mike was tuning his guitar, I observed as Veronica, the lazy manager who still hadn’t brought me any goddamn tea, pulled up the stool next to him. I could see from her body language she was flirting, and an immediate pang of jealousy hit my stomach like sour milk. I felt my eyes narrow to a glare as I watched her chat with him, even going so far as to touch his leg at one point, flipping her hair around like some kind of whore animal in heat. I wondered what she was saying, and got so caught up staring at them I became completely distracted from what I was supposed to be doing. The next thing I knew, I was hit square in the back with a drumstick that bounced off me and landed on the ground about good five feet away.

“Earth to Miranda!” Carmen yelled, standing up behind her drum kit, arms in the air, giving me the universal ‘what the fuck’ signal.

Aww, fuck. I got caught. Goddammit. I had to pretend to be mad at getting a fucking drumstick thrown at me, even though it was what I needed to get my stupid head back in the game. “What the fuck?!” I spun around, shifting my ‘I hate Veronica and anyone who goes near Ryan, who isn’t mine but I don’t care’ look to her. It was no secret I had no game though, and Carmen glared at me, shaking her head, .The guys looked on, seemingly not realizing what had happened, other than I got a drumstick thrown at me.

She pointed at her own eyes, then at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders. We were almost finished, and I was definitely ready to go see Leo, get my fucking tea, and chill out before the show.

The rest of the sound check went off without any issues. Everything about that place was great. I could hear perfectly, the stage was big enough for me to run around, and it was close enough to the audience that I could engage with them. Everything I could ask for, except that Carmen had a memory like an elephant, and she was definitely going to give me shit over being distracted on stage. I had avoided looking in Ryan’s direction the rest of the sound check, for fear I’d turn jealous psycho girlfriend again by accident, so there were no more issues with my sister; or me, for that matter.

When we finished, I finally looked over to find that Ryan was sitting at the bar alone; the tramp had left. As our eyes met, he smiled warmly and nodded at me, causing me to blush, of course .In my attempt at playing it cool, I just nodded in return and waved for him to come with us as we were leaving the stage, so the opening acts could do their sound checks. One of the perks to being the main event was that you did get to do sound check first, but really it just made sense. The first act to go on was the last act to do their sound check, so they could leave all their stuff on stage and just come back to perform when it was time.

Ryan approached the stage below us, as he had in Nashville, looking up at me with raised eyebrows. “All done?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re all done, everything is good,” I replied abruptly, angry with myself for caring what he was doing. He was a stranger, for Christ’s sake, and whom he talked to was none of my business. He was becoming a distraction already, and that was my fault. “So, we’re gonna head back to either the bus or the dressing rooms. There isn’t much going on if you want to find something else to do. Go eat, explore, or whatever.” I tried to reply casually, even though the butterflies in my stomach told another story, and I hoped he’d want to hang with us.

“Oh, I’ll be doing whatever it is you’re doing, milady,” he grinned, melting my icy self-deprecation immediately.

“Okay, well, let’s get to it. Leo is gonna be waiting for us, and I’m fucking starving,” Carmen chimed in, startling me.

“Oh, yea, ok. Yeah, let’s go,” I mumbled, and we all exited the stage. Most of the crew was going back to the buses to chill, while Ryan, Carmen, and I went back to the dressing room meant for us.